Ever have one of those chocolate macadamia nut cookies at Subway? Ahhh… erm…. me neither (brushes crumbs from my cleavage). Imagine that cookie with dried, chewy, delicately sweetened cranberries and you have the Girl Scout cookie sans the guilt. In fact, I’ll bet if you took this cookie to a LARP match, your opponent would immediately be hit by 27 hit flavor points and rendered useless before you. It’s true. It could happen.

It is important to note that dried, unsweetened cranberries are hard to come by. Like almost impossible. Like picturing a time when Abe Vigoda didn’t have nostril hairs. No worries! Simply foll0w the instructions on this Livestrong site to dehydrate your fresh cranberries.

Cranberries will not appear shriveled like raisins, but they will be dried, even if they hold their shape.

Because they tend to hold their shape, I counted a cup of dried cranberries with the same carb count as a cup of raw when calculating for nutritional values.

Speaking of plump, even though you first dehydrate the cranberries, you’ll rehydrate them in water and 1/2 cup sugar equivalent sweetener and puff them back up to measure adequately before baking.

Why dehydrate a cranberry to plump them back up again? The texture of the cranberries in this cookie is like raisins–only better. And better for you. And delicious. Chewy. Sweet… It’s a texture and a taste thing. Trust me.

Want to save carbs? Each white chocolate chip (I used Ghirardelli) is .2 carbs, so plan accordingly. You can elect to not add the white chocolate chips (which add 64 carbs to the recipe @1.5 carbs per cookie). You could also elect to stuff one chip into each cookie instead, saving a total of 52 carbs.

Added: A friend told me there are Lindt White Chocolate bars available that can be chopped for carb savings with the flavor.

Want to save fat and calories? Cut down on the amount of chopped macadamia nuts. I predicted that 1/2 cup macadamias would produce about 1/4 cup chopped nuts, but you can use fewer. Cut them out altogether and save 11 calories per cookie and 3.5 grams of fat.

Cranberry prep:
Add a cup of dehydrated berries to a cup of very hot water and 1/2 cup sugar equivalent of sweetener and allow to sit for an hour prior to use, stirring occasionally. This will help juice the berries back up and make them sweeter in the cookie. Pour off the water prior to measuring for the recipe.

Cookie prep:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sweeteners until smooth.
4. Beat in egg and extract.
5. Combine the flour and baking soda in a separate bowl. Slowly add to sweetener mixture.
6. Roll into 1″ balls and place on cookie sheet about 2″ apart (cookies don’t really spread).
7. With fingers, slightly flatten each cookie.
8. Bake for 6-7 minutes or until bottom is golden brown. The cookie will look unfinished, but it is.
9. Allow to cool for 2 minutes on cookie sheet before moving gently to a cooling rack.
10. Allow to cool for 30 minutes to allow cookies to fully set.

Comments

Jamie – these look wonderful. Another cookie on my to try list. Question for you – I just read the Livestrong recipe for drying the cranberries and I wonder if this could be done using frozen cranberries? I always throw many,many bags in the freezer at holiday time, so I have lots ready to dry. Do you think you would let them defrost first, then do the boiling water thing?? I have dried them before, but that recipe had you cooking them first, then drying so they came out like cranberry leather, tasted ok but looked odd.
Thanks

They do come out looking a little funny! I thought then, “Why not try re-hydrating them with the sugar-free sweetened water to re-plump them a little to make them chewy again.” Without the re-hydration, the cranberries will be better and crunchy and unpleasant in the cookie, and I wanted them chewier. No matter which process you follow, you’ll want to rehydrate those berries prior to cookie fabulousness. That said, the frozen berries might work well, too! Let me know how they work…

Hi, Willie! I REALLY love the Ideal/Kroger co-brand sweetener in the purple bag in the baking aisle. Here’s the link so you know what to look for. This, to me, is an incredible product. And now that it’s sold in stores (I used to have to order through amazon.com), I make sure to keep my pantry stocked with it for baking. http://www.idealsweet.com/kroger/index.html